County fears nuke threat to river

Friday, May 21, 1999 | 11:53 a.m.

A Clark County official outlined the risks to Southern Nevada's drinking water over 70 years as thousands of nuclear-waste shipments cross the Colorado River.

The Department of Energy estimates that for 70 years up to 16 trucks a day loaded with low-level nuclear waste from 20 defunct nuclear weapon sites nationwide will cross the Colorado River. The shipments would then travel 65 miles northwest to the Nevada Test Site, Fred Dilger of the county's Nuclear Waste Division said.

That amounts to 295,000 truck trips crossing the river, which supplies most of Southern Nevada's drinking water through Lake Mead.

The DOE is responsible for and committed to cleaning up radioactive remains from defense sites for the next 70 years, federal environmental managers have said. If the Test Site is designated as a regional nuclear waste site, the maximum number of low-level nuclear shipments could come to Nevada.

Another five shipments per day of highly radioactive waste heading for Yucca Mountain could continue for 30 years if the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas proves scientifically sound as a permanent waste repository, Dilger said. That equals 37,000 trucks loaded with radioactive commercial reactor wastes which remain deadly for 2,500 years inside a repository, he said.

Yet the DOE has not addressed risks to the water supply raised by county officials, Dilger said.

Southern Nevada Water Authority board member Myrna Williams had asked county officials to research the potential radioactive threat to Southern Nevada's drinking water supply if a traffic accident should occur, sending a nuclear load into local waters.

"That's our lifeblood here," Williams said referring to the lake and the river, "and the DOE didn't even consider the risks to it, which shows the inadequacy of the work they are doing at Yucca Mountain."

The county's report was delivered during a board meeting at the Las Vegas Valley Water District Thursday and concerned other members, including water authority board Chairwoman Mary Kincaid and member Paula Brown. "It's scary," Kincaid said after the presentation.

The DOE is scheduled to release a draft environmental impact statement on Yucca Mountain by July 31, but the county has had very little input on what the environmental impacts are from high-level nuclear shipments, Dilger said.

Although the DOE has requested current low-level nuclear waste transporters to avoid hauling radioactive loads over Hoover Dam or through the intersection of U.S. 95 and Interstate 15, it is up to the individual transportation companies to choose routes and times.

All nuclear shipments from a former uranium manufacturing plant in Fernald, Ohio, were suspended in December 1997 after boxes loaded with soils contaminated with radiation leaked liquids on the way to the Test Site. The radiation in such loads is considered low-level.

However, state and county officials knew nothing about the leaky containers until a trucker noticed about two gallons of uncontaminated water leaking from the back of his rig in Kingman, Ariz., and a radiation team was called. The Ohio shipments have not resumed.

Since the county does not know which routes will carry nuclear shipments, planning for an accident is practically impossible, Dilger said. During an emergency response drill a year ago, county officials said they were overwhelmed within two hours when they played out the scenario of a low-level radioactive shipment involved in a rush-hour crash in the Spaghetti Bowl.

Dilger also criticized the DOE for failing to consider radiation risks to residents living along Nevada highways.